March, 2015

Or maybe I should have titled it, “Trying to be nice in Nice”.
After two days in London we headed to Cannes for a huge real estate conference. It started off a little rocky when our luggage didn’t make it up to the room. After 40 minutes and two phone calls later I decided to take matters into my own hands. I went to the bell desk and saw our two suitcases just sitting there so after a brief yell at the two 16 year old bell hops, I dragged them off myself. When the hotel manager sent up a bottle of nice French (this should do the trick) champagne, all was forgotten, I mean literally forgotten because I almost drank the entire bottle myself.

The conference has taken over the entire city, every restaurant, hotel and bar. The Croisette is crawling with men in dark suits, mostly euro dudes with good shoes and cool haircuts. The smell of men’s parfum is everywhere unlike a real estate conference in Las Vegas or any conference in Las Vegas for that matter. The days are to myself to wander, shop, run along the beach and eat baguette sandwiches but at night it’s “business” dinners where we eat lavish French food paired with beautiful wines and champagnes and lively conversation.

The last two days were spent exploring the historic villages and mountainside above Cannes. We stayed in Mougin at a lovely villa called Manoir de L’tang which also houses rescue horses and a 5 star restaurant so I knew it was up my alley. On one of our journeys up in the mountains we found a hiking trail and while hiking we came across a shepherd with his herd of goats, sheep, 3 dogs, a donkey and some beautiful red deer. One of the younger dogs came over to say hello while the other two did their job in keeping the herd moving and in line. It was beautiful to see. All of the towns we visited were incredibly beautiful, Valbonne, St. Paul de Vence, Vence, Gourdon and of course, Mougin.

Or maybe it is. I don’t know what they’re calling this crazy winter of ours but I DO know that when I get the bill for plowing our driveway, the company names each storm. Juno. Olympia. I didn’t know this was a thing, naming snow storms. There is one going on right now as I type this and I’m wondering what her name is. Becky? Priscilla? I believe it would be better to name them things like Slushy or Nippy, maybe Bitchy because some of these storms are pretty angry. When we’re in the city it’s a just a hot (cold) mess, impossible to be cute and where one jut tries to make it to the next coffee shop to warm up before heading to the next.